Almost every artist I know thinks he or she is ready for the “Big League” where the fans multiply themselves, the sales roll in, and the lifestyle is full of rich rewards that stretch far beyond money in the bank.
This “fantasy superstar” mindset is a definite path to disappointment, as it hides the real facts of effort, discipline, assistance, strategy and skill required to achieve the sought after “Big League” success especially considering only a fraction of artists on today’s Billboard charts achieved big league success by being born into super stardom or by achieving it overnight.
What if you were sure you had competitive songs and you were ready for publicity?
How would you start it? What would it be like?
Now tell me… is it more important for you to make money or grow your fan club? Let me by the way clarify, that you can browse the web day and night and discover that most attempts to tackle music publicity are outdated by now, seeing that we’re in the middle of 2008.
To make money you simply need to put your CD on sale.
WRONG!!! To make money you need a plan. You need to direct traffic from each distribution channel, to one central location. Blogs, MySpace, YouTube, Internet Radio, this is all pointing to your official website…and from there you need to start building relationships.
You can build relationships through blogs or emails.
To make money you need to sell merchandise.
WRONG!!! To make money you need to develop a science that gets as many of your fans as possible, to tell someone else about your music. How do you do this?
You need a plan, a strategy.
You need something you can give away, something that’s valuable to THEM not to YOU. Now we’re talking about an investment. This is the lesson of the day… As the future moves forward, it will COST you money to attract and retain fans. Its not a cost, its a temporary loan. You are taking out a loan for your fans, but they will pay you back when you give them an…
EXPERIENCE.
An experience is not just a 3 song demo. An experience is the website, the merchandise, the tour, the YouTube videos, postcards, lights, the behind-the-scenes photos. It’s the combination of these things, which will form an experience that fans want to be a part of.
How do you do that?
Get on the edge. Are you the artist who shows up for a gig and just performs live? Handing out business cards is so boring… BUT… WHAT DO YOU give your fans when they see you live? Nothing?
Then expect nothing in return. When was the last time you gave 100 Fans A T-Shirt, 20 fans a dinner to the movies, or maybe you took the time to develop a partnership/joint venture with a restaurant so you could get 50 or 100 free gift certificates.
You can still miss the mark when it comes down to the strategy. All of that is just WASTEFUL PUBLICITY…because it doesn’t do the ONE thing Major Labels are Good At…
Telling people what to do…and why.
You knew about Madonna’s album in 2007, you were told to buy it, you were told to expect the impossible.
You need to get people to talk.
What are you saying, what punch line is in your lyrics that’s going to be the household phrase of the year… what melody is so catchy that people will hum it on their way to work. What slogan are you using that is so powerful even George Bush has to pay attention.
Generate attention by doing something remarkable; let your personality set you apart from everyone else. The good news is, the best weapon you have right now is TIME to PLOT a perfect album release. Time to plot a perfect campaign that’s centered around the 2008 presidential elections.
Start collecting relationships and fans, and when you collect them remember that you MUST keep them busy and gradually promote them from window-shoppers to customers.
Everybody “thinks” they have a plan…I mean a plan that you can be persistent with and a plan you firmly believe…on a daily basis, is not something you can do in 48 hours.
Artists who had a plan?
Ask Jordin Sparks why they pulled her out of high school and put her in home school so she could develop her voice better. You only do that if you really believe the talent is worth the big leap.
Ask Simon Fuller, the creator of American Idol. The guy has real estate property across the world. PLUS he manages the acts who have the highest sales, for the past 3 years since 2005. Before American Idol, he already had successful TV shows overseas.
Don’t believe the lies that…
Jordin Sparks was an Amateur…WRONG- even though she was on a somewhat amateur contest. She followed a plan.
Kelly Clarkson didn’t earn it…WRONG- she took her share of risks including giving up a chance to go to music universities.
Who else? Sarah Bareilles…plan. Took a solid 6 years to get where she is today. That’s including 2 years of being signed and waiting.
Madonna? Madonna’s first band dismembered because they knew it would be more successful if they pushed her as a solo artist… Plan. Plan. Madonna has always been the center of controversy and of course that is always a great buzz-builder.
As Americans, as humans, we are addicted to this three letter word called
NEW
When you can do something NEW, present something fresh to something “old” and you do it right, then you don’t have to worry so much about publicity and marketing. You will always have to earn it, work for it, and work to keep it…but when you understand the psyche’ of the human mind, you will know how to position yourself and your products to gain the recognition you need to achieve higher levels of music success.
A new pair of shoes is more exciting than an old pair of shoes with a stripe down the middle. Don’t be the stripe on the old pair of shoes.
Success is NOT an accident.
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Music Superstar Formula
Need ADVANCED training? I’d love for you to be one of the 300 artists who uses the world’s FIRST Music Industry super course, but I must warn you… This is not for newbie’s, and it is not some cheap e-book you buy for $49 bucks. This life-changing super course will only be available from July 14th-18th, or until it’s sold out. Get more details click here.
